Wednesday, 3 February 2016

Nowadays, each
software application needs to deliver seamless user experience across multiple
devices, platforms and browsers to stay popular and profitable. But the
performance and user experience of the software is impacted by a number of external
factors including systems, processes and infrastructures. No business can
exercise control over these external factors affecting its software’s user
interface (UI) and user experience (UX). That is why; it becomes essential for
businesses to test their software repeatedly and continuously to maintain its
quality and user experience.

5 Reasons
Why Software Applications Must Be Tested Continuously

1) Shorter Delivery Cycles

A steady
increase is being noted in the number of organizations adopting agile project
management methodology. The agile methodology emphasizes on short and
incremental software delivery cycles. The methodology further requires
programmers and testers to work together and concurrently. Once a particular
functionality or module of the software is developed, the testers need to
assess its quality and share the test results with various stakeholders in the
project. The shorter delivery cycles have made it essential for businesses to
perform continuous testing.

2) Early Detections of Defects and Bugs

Many studies
have highlighted a business can reduce software testing time and cost
drastically through continuous testing. When the defects or bugs in an
application are detected early, it becomes easier for programmers to get them
fixed. As the code is still fresh in their mind, the programmers can work on
the defects without putting extra time and effort. Thus, a business can switch
from waterfall testing to continuous testing to reduce the defect turnaround
time significantly.

3) Overcome Time and Resource Constraints

Most businesses
explore ways to enhance test coverage by overcoming constraints related to
resources and time. When the software testing commences after the development
phase of the project, the testers have to perform the required tests within a
stipulated amount of time without affecting the software’s time to market. But
when the testers perform continuous testing, it becomes easier for them to
complete all tests without requiring any additional time. Hence, continuous
testing helps businesses to deliver a flawless software application despite the
constraints related to time and resources.

4) Produce High Quality Code

Many enterprises
nowadays review source code of software applications to make it safe and
secure. The testing model requires the source code of the software to be
assessed and reviewed frequently and thoroughly. While reviewing the source
code, the testers can identify the pieces of code that may make the application
vulnerable to security attacks. A business can always produce high quality code
by performing continuous testing. When software is tested continuously, it
becomes easier for testers to each and everything in a build. They can even
review the source code of the software repeatedly to ensure that the software
is not vulnerable to evolving security threats.

5) Essential for Mobile Apps

Nowadays most
businesses develop mobile apps by targeting multiple devices and platforms. So
they need to ensure that the app deliver quality user experience across many
devices and platforms. Likewise, they need to check the application’s user
interface across different models of smartphones, tablets and phablets. With
mobile operating systems being updated at regular intervals and new mobile apps
emerging on a regular basis, it has become essential for businesses to check
the mobile app’s performance and user experience continuously. So the
businesses must test the mobile appscontinuously to accomplish more downloads
and higher returns.

Each enterprise
can facilitate continuous software testing in a number of ways. It can always
provide testers with test automation tools to perform the tests repeatedly and
continuously without putting extra time and effort. Likewise, it can adopt
continuous integration (CI) methodology to enable the testers to perform the
tests accurately and frequently.

Tuesday, 2 February 2016

The agile
project management methodology emphasizes on software applications being
developed and tested in rapid and incremental cycles. The model does not
consider software development and software testing as two distinct processes.
In an agile environment, the programmers and testers have to work together to
ensure that the software quality is maintained. The collaboration promotes
continuous iteration of development and testing throughout the entire software development life cycle (SDLC). Each
business can reap a number of benefits by adopting the agile software testing
model.

Understanding
Important Benefits of Agile Testing Methodology

Instantaneous Feedback

In an agile
environment, programmers and testers work as a single team. So the entire team
is responsible for software quality. The testers can write unit tests each time
a new feature or functionality is added to the application, and test the new
code almost immediately. Further, they can provide instant feedback to the
programmers about defects or bugs in the software. Based on the feedback
received from the testers, the programmers can fix the bugs in the same build.

Better and Continuous Communication

In an agile
environment, testers have to stay connected with programmers, project managers,
customers and other stakeholders in the project. The emphasis on people and
interaction results in better and effective communication. The programmers can
simply contact the testers to gather more specific and detailed information
about the bugs identified by them. The
daily scrum sessions further help the entire team to focus on identifying and
fixing important issues in advance.

Easy to Eliminate Major Defects

It becomes
easier for programmers to fix the bugs when the defects in the application are
identified immediate after the coding phase. As the code it still fresh in the
programmer’s mind, he can get the defects fixed without putting any extra time
and effort. The instant feedback provided by testers help developers to work on
major bugs in the application almost immediately. The business can further avoid
additional cost when the bugs are identified during the coding phase.

Easy to Reproduce Bugs

While preparing
a bug report, testers have to write detailed and specific information about the
bugs identified in the software. They can further reduce the defect turnaround
time drastically by reproducing the bugs. But testers have to put additional
time and effort to reproduce the bugs. In an agile environment, they test the
software once the code is written. So they find time to write detailed bug
reports and reproduce the defects accurately.

Easy to Incorporate Changes

To reap benefits
of waterfall software testing, a business has to define the business
requirements from the beginning of the project. But software developers
nowadays have to build applications based on frequently-changing business
requirements. So it becomes impossible for the managers to outline the business
requirements clearly before the project starts. But a business can always adopt
agile testing methodology to incorporate changes and enhancements required by
the client. In an agile environment, applications are developed and tested in
short sprints. So the programmer and testers have to focus only on a single
sprint with specific features. They can easily accommodate the new business
requirements in the next sprint without any hassle.

Enhanced Test Coverage

Often developers
have to test software thoroughly without increasing its time to delivery. So
they have to prioritize the defects at the time of preparing bug reports. But
agile methodology enables testers to perform tests continuously throughout the
software development life cycle. Many enterprises even invest in test automation tools to enable testers to repeat the tests under various
conditions. Thus, the testers can assess all aspects of the software without
affecting the delivery time.

Shorter Delivery Period

Each business
has to deliver software continuously and rapidly to make the client happy. Hence,
businesses frequently explore ways to shorten the delivery period. Agile
methodology emphasize on development and testing of the application in small iterations.
So it becomes easier for enterprises to deliver the working software to the
client at frequent intervals. The
constant interaction between the testers and customers further resolve various
issues and differences without any delay.

However, it is
also important for the organization to keep in mind some of the important
shortcomings of agile testing model. Likewise, the managers also need to
understand when to use the agile testing methodology. But each enterprise can
reap benefits in terms of time, quality and cost by implementing a custom agile
testing strategy.

Monday, 1 February 2016

With the advancement of
technology it has provided us with many benefits as well as helped us to lead a
life of luxury and ease. It has also helped in diminishing the distance between
the people and increased chances of communication. However, like all good
things, this advancement too has certain negativities which are majorly looming
up on us like the security threats that are becoming stronger and stronger.
This makes security testing very important in the current days.

Very
Frequent Changes:With the ever increasing demands of the
customers, the developers have to bring about frequent updates and changes in
the application they are developing. This has to be combined with the regular
testing of the software to check if the security is top notch even after the
changes that have been brought about. Previously testing needed to be done on
the alpha and the final product, but this frequent testing poses to be a real
challenge. These changes make all year round testing compulsory.

Too Many
Pages:With the development of better and more detailed
applications, contents which require testing also increases. This in turn
increases the time required for testing these detailed applications. Automation
tools may ease this challenge faced by the testers but it only accounts for
certain vulnerabilities of the applications the rest of which has to be
detected by manual process in order to be rectified. This challenge can be
somewhat avoided by keeping special focus on the various threats which appears
again and again on the application which may help in cutting down the cost of
the whole security testing process and ease the challenges.

Lots of
Privilege Levels: Prevention of privilege escalation via holes in
the application is one of the major jobs of thesecurity testing process. With
the increase of privileges provided to the customers the number of security
tests applicable to the applications automatically increases. Increased number
of tests will result in increased time invested as well as increase focus for
each of the application which becomes a major issue for the testers. The
problem intensifies when the automated tools fails to find the holes which further
escalates the already provided privileges and time consuming manual testing
procedures are required for it.

A Lot of
Ajax: Introduction of Ajax poses to be a serious security threat
in the current days. Ajax enables the users of the various applications to
request for various little changes in the same. Each of these various little
requests allows tempering of the available security changes as these changes
could bring about various kinds of cracks in the system. This leads to constant
security testing of application by the testers. Another major problem is the
fact that although these problems may be related to the old school ones, tools
for Ajax security testing are still developing.

Tools
Haven’t Matured:The most prevalent challenge which is faced by
the testers during security testing of the application is the lack of tools
which will be capable of performing automated security tests on the
applications that are being developed. The automated tools which are available
are only partially capable of detecting the security breaches or loopholes
present on the application. This compels the testers to perform the various
security tests by the old school manual testing process which requires more
labor as well as greater amount of time for the completion and detection of
flaws.

These are some of the major
challenges that the testers are facing when it comes to security testing of the
various software.